


Perspectives on Art

by DracoMaleficium



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, Sokka's Mad Drawing Skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sokka knows he sucks at drawing. But a certain girl in the 3-D art studio has a few interesting ideas how to help him suck a little less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspectives on Art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [errantknightess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/errantknightess/gifts).



> Fic commissioned by errantknightess, whose idea this was in the first place.
> 
> If _you_ want to help a girl out and commission a fic, [my shop's still open for business!](http://dracze.tumblr.com/post/90146738443/fic-commissions-open)

It was supposed to be a duck. A _duck_ , not a turtle. Copied straight out of a How To Draw kind of book that Mr. Piandao gave out at the start of the class, and Sokka even did it the right step-by-step way this time, with all the extra lines that he then spent an eternity erasing, and everything. By now he has squinted at his artwork from every possible angle and while he is ready to admit that this humpy bit where the wings are _maaaaaay_ perhaps look a tad like a turtle shell, the thing also has a beak. You can’t really miss the beak, even if On Ji confused it for a fedora. And a fluffy little duck tail. And those paddly duck legs which, by the way, do not look in any way like bat wings, thank you very much, Chan. Sokka is beginning to seriously doubt that any of his classmates have even seen a proper duck before, when it’s quaking along in the wild and not prancing around in a Disney cartoon wearing a sailor outfit. And, well, he _has_ seen one, and more than one, and has even fed them in the park a few times, and he’s at least 98% sure that turtles have four legs and do not paddle. 

He lifts the piece of paper up to the sun and reverses it so he can peer at it through the back, the way Mr. Piandao taught them, and is forced to heave a sigh of a warrior defeated.

All right, it really does look like a turtle shell, a bit. Okay, a lot, now that he looks at it from this perspective. If it looks like anything at all, and despite the encouraging stream of “I’m sure that you’ll keep getting better if you keep practicing” in class, Sokka isn’t all that sure about it.

Resigned, he folds the sheet of paper, sticks it into his notebook together with the rest of his artistic endeavors – the notebook is beginning to look like a supersize Big Mac at this point, he should probably think about buying a proper sketchbook one of these days – then drops the lot into his backpack and zips it up like a man on a mission. He’ll work on the duck some more at home and maybe color it a little. That should make it look less… turtle-y.

He hopes. With his luck it will probably only make it look like a random splotch of yellow with a black spot where the eye should be.

Still, he will never let a small thing such as this dampen his enthusiasm. Tomorrow they’re supposed to move on to more advanced animals and he’s already looking forward to sweating out something four-legged that may end up looking a bit like a horse in a bad light.

And besides, even Katara said he’s been making progress. Granted, right before she added “If you can call that progress,” but Sokka will take what he can get. The classes make him feel good. There’s something deeply satisfying about sitting in a room stacked with canvases, where the air is dry and oily with paint and the gentle-yet-insistent scratch of pencil on paper from a dozen concentrated students squinting at their masterpieces lulls the thoughts into something of a standstill. 

Normally Sokka isn’t all that good with silences – it never takes too long for that nagging itch of awkwardness to settle in and curl up his throat and open his mouth for him to barf some nonsense whose only purpose is to break the layer of silence, much like a swimmer gulps in air when he breaks the water’s surface. Sometimes he wonders if it’s not actually a problem, especially when Katara makes that exasperated face or Gran-Gran rolls her eyes just so to let him know he’s started babbling again. But the silence in the studio, it’s – it’s different, in a way he can’t put his finger on, and when the air thickens with concentration that swirls in the room like specks of dust in the sunlight it no longer feels like something awkward to be broken, but – well, he doesn’t know. But he likes it, especially since it makes Mr. Piandao’s gentle voice louder when he strolls around the tables, distributing advice and encouragement alike, and so generously it makes Sokka think of Santa. Besides, sometimes it’s nice to hear yourself think, and the knowledge that all those people around him are concentrating on the very same goal makes it easier to keep his mouth shut.

There is also something to be said for that moment when you start drawing and the shape from your head suddenly appears right there on the page, line by line, twirl by twirl. And it doesn’t matter that no one else can tell what it’s meant to be, because you _can_ , and the moment you see it actually starting to resemble something is – well, Sokka would have said that it’s a bit like giving birth, but Katara gave him a thorough dressing down the last time he tried that, so maybe it’s safer to say that feels like a pink little cloud full of warmth has misted into his chest and, for a while, settled there, pushing all the bad away. 

Not that he’s ever going to use that particular comparison in public because he is a guy and has his dignity to maintain. But the bottom line is, it feels nice. 

_You don’t need to be the new Rembrandt to enjoy drawing_ , Aang said once, and while normally the kid’s relentless optimism tends to get on Sokka’s nerves, he’s still kind of grateful for that one. For all his flailing he knows he – um, has a long way to go, to put it gently, but he _has_ been enjoying drawing. 

Even if all he can produce is a misshapen vaguely-duckish thingie that looks like it has a turtle shell on its back. 

Most of the students are already through the door and Mr. Piandao is getting ready to leave as well. Sokka beams at him as he passes the desk and calls, “See you tomorrow!” 

The man nods at him with a smile as he’s stacking the art books into his briefcase. Sokka makes a mental note to return the one he borrowed last week, with all the funny-looking human robots made up of lines and circles. Drawing people seems a bit ambitious given that he can’t do a proper duck yet.

Still, when he walks out into the corridor, the relaxation from the last hour is still buzzing in his head and he starts humming, “ _How am I gonna be an optimist about this_ …”, strolling down the almost-empty corridor towards the parking lot, his left hand beating a rhythm against the side of his thigh.

He gets as far as the next part, the one where he can never remember the lyrics and usually just hums it out, when a high, girlish voice, piqued with exasperation, calls out, “Sure, by all means, keep making that racket, it’s not like I’m concentrating here or anything.”

Sokka stops and glances to his right, into one of the open art studios. “Um, sorry?” he tries, taking a step forward to peek inside. “I thought all the classes were over by now.”

“And you just decided to rehearse for your Best of Justin Bieber recital because of that?” the same voice quips somewhere to his right.

“I’ll have you know that it is not, in fact, Justin Bieber,” Sokka replies indignantly, looking around the spacious 3-D art studio crowded with clay and papier-mâché sculptures, or things that are probably meant to be sculptures. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. “Have you been living under a rock or something?”

And then he spots her. A tiny figure in the corner of the room, back pressed into the chair which in turn rests against the wall, her feet hovering in a strange position over a huge work table where some sort of grey construction rises out of clay like a swamp monster in a B-class horror story. The girl seems tiny and frail, younger than him by about 3 years, but the shock of black hair that rises over her yellow-and-green headband and circles her head in a big giant puff makes her seem somewhat bigger. She’s wearing a stained apron over a dark green t-shirt and blue jeans, from what Sokka can see, and her expression is set in one-eyebrow-raised grimace that spells _unimpressed_.

“Something like that,” she murmurs. “Don’t hit the door on your way out.”

Never one to be discouraged by sarcasm – not when he’s the one to dish it out most of the time – Sokka takes her in and this time focuses on her feet. Now that he peers at them, he realizes with a yank in his stomach that the girl is not wearing socks, like he assumed at first glance.

Her feet look grey because they’re covered in dirt.

Holy shit.

“Are you sculpting with your feet?” he blurts out, a spike of curiosity taking over and carrying his feet over the threshold and into the studio. 

The strange girl huffs, the burst of air causing her messy fringe to jump over her rather tiny nose. “What is it with you people stating the obvious all the time?” she muses. 

“Okay, that?” Sokka points at the dirty feet. “Is not obvious. It’s definitely not obvious. Is this some kind of experimental art or something?”

“I don’t know, is your singing some kind of experimental music or something?” the girl snaps, but Sokka has already spied what’s going on at the table before her and stares at what looks like a great many square-shaped lumps rising up in neat geometric patterns that, now that he pays attention, look a bit like streets. 

“Hey, this is neat,” he declares, pushing up a chair for himself and promptly sitting down. “What is it, like, a city?”

“Okay, first of all, who are you?” the girl demands, crossing her arms over her soiled white apron. Her entire pose screams defensiveness and Sokka feels like kicking himself. 

“Right. Sorry.” He thrusts out his hand for the girl to shake. “Sokka’s the name, you may have heard of me, I’m on the football team and all, the pleasure’s all yours.”

The girl doesn’t take his hand. In fact, she doesn’t even look at him. She just stares right ahead with that sour expression that lingers somewhere between bored and annoyed, and Sokka considers taking offence but then he actually notices her eyes, and they seem to just hover in a strange, unfocused way, and they’re bright and somewhat milky and they…

… look sort of… blank…

… Oh. _Oh_. 

Sokka quickly withdraws the hand and smacks it against his forehead, hard.

Maybe a bit too hard, in fact, because the sound is immediately snatched by the air in the vast, empty room and ricochets from the walls like a stone dropped down the well. Sokka freezes, daring to peep at the girl from the crack between his fingers. She seems tense, spiked with invisible prickly needles like a hedgehog sensing danger, but even as he looks, her smooth, pale face begins to soften, and then contract in an entirely new way, as though she’s…

Laughing?

“Did you just facepalm?” She chuckles, resting her feet against the edge of the table, ankles crossed. 

Sokka blinks, removing the hand from his forehead. “I… might have?”

“So you’ve only just figured it out, huh.” The girl shrugs, smirking at a place somewhere above his left ear. “I’ve had facepalms before, but never as loud as this one. Mostly people just start stammering and apologizing for God knows what and I get to laugh at them. It’s okay, you know. You don’t have to feel weird just because I’m blind.”

Right. Right. Sokka sort of feels like hitting himself again, but instead he decides to push his chair a bit closer and tries not to feel weird when the girl’s milky eyes follow the sound of the scraping of the chair legs on the floor.

 _Just act normal, champ. Don’t make it weird. It doesn’t have to be weird unless you make it weird_ , he tells himself. Right then. 

“So, what’s your name?” he asks, feeling his way out of the shock and back into something that starts to resemble his usual nonchalance. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

“Well, you wouldn’t,” she admits, some of the initial prickliness gone with that first smile. “I’m homeschooled. But my parents drive me over here twice a week so I can have a _creative outlet_.” She minces the words like a Republican might mince _public healthcare_. “I’m Toph.”

“Homeschooled, huh? And now you’re building a city with your feet?” 

Toph shrugs again. “Not just my feet,” she admits, like there’s nothing weird with that picture at all. “I did most of it with my hands, but then I got bored and decided to try something different. Can’t say it’s working out for me, but then again, I can’t really see the difference.” She pauses, then, curling her toes in the air, and asks in a softer, lower voice, “So it does look like a city?”

“Yeah.” Sokka begins to nod, then remembers that it won’t do the girl much good and adds, “It really does. There’s houses and… spaces between houses… and streets… and are those walls?”

“You mean what goes around the city and through it?” Toph leans forward and reaches out with her hands until she touches the sculpture, then fingers along the long clay wall that makes up the border of her sprawling construction, herding it into a frame. “Yeah. Walls,” she murmurs, hair falling over her eyes. “You know. A city with walls.” 

Then, she perks up again and turns her head to where she knows Sokka is sitting, hands still touching along the sculpture. The sudden jump in her mood is jarring enough that it alerts Sokka to a charge in the atmosphere that has already buzzed out before he even noticed, and he resolves to pay more attention. 

“Are you an artist?” Toph asks. “Since, you know, you’re hanging out in the art wing?”

“Naaaah.” Sokka smiles wryly, thinking of his botched duck sketch. “Not really. I just like drawing and I thought I’d take some art classes during the summer, just for fun.”

Inexplicably, Toph sighs and drops back into her chair. “Christ, please tell me you’re not one of those overly modest artists who claim they’re no good and hoard fucking Mona Lisas in their sketchbooks,” she whines. “I’ve had it up to my ears with those. Not that I can actually see what their works look like, obviously, but the kids in my group are having I Suck More competitions every damned time I come over and I’m sick of it.”

Sokka laughs. He can’t help it. “No danger of that,” he admits truthfully. “I really do suck. Ask anyone. Especially my sister. She says that all of my drawings end up looking like cartoon pigs.” 

“And you’re still taking art classes?” Toph’s lips curve back into a smirk. “That’s brave, man.”

“Yup.” Sokka puffs out his chest. “I’m very brave. Today I drew a duck and everyone thought it was a turtle.”

“Really?” Toph cocks her head to the side, looking curious. “Why?”

“Because apparently it looks like it has a turtle shell on its back. I guess they’re right. I need to step up my duck game.”

“That’s certainly not a sentence one expects to hear every day,” Toph points out over a white-toothed grin. “You know what I would do if I were you? I’d actually draw that turtle shell. I mean, actually add it to the duck drawing. Own the suckiness and stick it to those haters. And actually, a duck with a turtle shell sounds pretty neat, don’t you think?”

“Yyyyyeah.” Sokka can practically feel the lightbulb flashing on in his head. “That would be, like, creative. Like actual art!”

“And you could call it the turtleduck,” Toph suggests, obviously warming up to the idea. “That would show them.”

“I bet Mr. Piandao would like that.” Sokka grips the edges of the chair in his enthusiasm. “He looks like a guy who likes creative stuff. And maybe we could come up with more hybrids, like…”

“A mix between a cow and a hippo?” Toph is smiling openly now. “Or a seal with tiger stripes!”

Sokka looks at her with his eyes shining and stamps down on the impulse to ruffle that strange bun she’s got going on. “You’re a genius,” he tells her freely. 

“Of course I am,” she responds, stretching her arms out and crossing them leisurely behind her head. “No need to thank me. I enjoy helping simpletons such as yourself.”

“Hey.” Sokka gives her the side-eye. “I’m not a simpleton. I’m a man who is about to draw the fuck out of a duck with a turtle shell, okay? What about your clay city? Need any help with that?”

“Nah, I’m just about done.” Toph leans forward and starts touching the sculpture again. “It was a stupid project anyway.”

“Why? It looks really cool to me.”

“Well.” Toph shrugs, some of that prickliness creeping back into the way she squares her bony shoulders. “I just thought I could try and make a city that I had a dream about the other night. You can go ahead and laugh at me now.”

Sokka blinks, leaning forward to peer into her face. It’s grown guarded again, shutting him out, but it only makes him want to prod more, especially now that he’s seen her smile. “Why would I laugh at you?” he asks carefully. “I think it’s brilliant. What was your dream about?”

At first, Toph doesn’t respond. She sits there, hands moving almost frantically over her sculpture as though she’s ashamed of it and wants to protect it all at the same time. But as seconds tick by, she seems to come to a decision and sighs heavily, glancing Sokka’s way suspiciously.

“It was nothing special,” she mumbles. “Just a city… an old one. And it was huge. And there was this giant wall that ran all around it, a bit like the Great Wall of China, I guess… only there were walls inside it as well. To divide the people into classes. So there.” 

She punctuates the last words with a finger jab at the biggest element of the construction, a slab that sits in the middle of the city of clay like a castle presiding over a kingdom, and suddenly Sokka has a feeling that it’s meant to be just that. He chooses his next words carefully, suddenly aware of a certain raw vulnerability that peeks at him from between Toph’s fringe, and thinks that maybe, perhaps, Toph doesn’t have all that many people to talk to.

“It sounds really interesting,” he tells her. “Like it could be a setting for a story. Maybe we could come up with one sometime.”

And it seems that, for once, he does find the right thing to say. Toph sort of – deflates, like a balloon that’s been punctured, and her face eases into a smile once more when she folds her hands over the un-claimed edge of the table.

“Maybe,” she allows graciously. “And then maybe I could try and sculpt it and you could botch the character design.”

Sokka grins, feeling vaguely like he’s just scored an A on a difficult test. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Have _you_ ever dabbled in sculpting?”

“Me? Nope. Drawing is already too advanced for me, I’d feel bad ruining all that perfectly good clay,” Sokka confesses, even through the familiar itch to try a new thing _right here, right now_ , which has plagued him ever since childhood and been responsible for many an incident of him eating something he shouldn’t. “But I did make a donkey’s head out of papier-mâché once,” he remembers. “For Christmas. For my sister. I think she still keeps her in her closet, though she’ll never actually admit it.” 

“Well, maybe you could try it you want,” Toph offers flippantly. “Miss Ursa usually lets me stay here for about two hours before she comes over to lock up and take me home and that won’t be for some time. And there’s leftover clay she hasn’t cleaned up yet after the other students. Knock yourself out.”

And indeed, when Sokka looks around, he sees the leftover material resting on the other work tables.

The inner struggle is intense, but short, and soon he is scooping the gooey thing with his hands and molding it into a very simple-yet-familiar shape. It’s harder than it looks. The clay seems to resist him and he actually needs to strain his muscles, but his skin seems to like the cool feeling of it coating his fingers, and it’s a bit like kneading the cookie dough with Gran-Gran back at home, and yeah, Sokka is definitely having fun.

“What do you think?” he asks about fifteen minutes later, carrying his simple creation over to Toph.

She touches it all over with a comically thoughtful expression that makes her look like one of those pompous art critics on TV, and Sokka lets out a little laugh at the sight. From the way she smirks, that was the intended response.

“What is that?” she asks bluntly, sliding back into her chair.

“A boomerang,” Sokka explains. “I love them. My dad brought me one from a trip to Australia when I was little. It’s still my favorite toy.”

“Your Dad sounds like a nice guy,” Toph observes quietly.

“He’s great,” Sokka agrees enthusiastically. And then adds, “When he’s there. He’s sort of, travelling a lot. For reasons.”

And they are good reasons. Sokka knows that. Their father is doing a lot of good in the country, campaigning against corrupt corporations and doing his best to improve the general working conditions and suchlike. Really, he’s proud and hopes to be like that someday.

But it doesn’t make it any easier to he see his sister’s anger after every phone call, and to find himself agreeing with her, just a little bit.

“But he does bring you dangerous toys,” Toph points out. “My parents would flip out if I brought home a boomerang.”

The sigh that follows this declaration is suspiciously deep. Sokka glances at the girl, surprised, and reads a history there, something Toph clearly doesn’t want to talk about. 

He lets it go. Instead, he asks, “So what kind of hybrid would you like to try to do?”

And there is the smile again, and she is sitting up in her chair, and her milky eyes look a bit brighter, and Sokka feels even warmer than when he sits down to draw. 

They try to sculpt a turtleduck. It’s sort of fascinating to see Toph work, the way she traces every single bit of clay with her fingers and connects the pieces together entirely by touch, and though Sokka points things out to her from time to time, he realizes he doesn’t really have to because she’s got it down. Her small fingers dance around with a deftness that must be the result of years of practice, and she seems confident, and eager, sticking out her tongue whenever she concentrates hard enough to forget Sokka’s here. 

And the sculpture itself – well, it definitely ends up looking more like a duck than Sokka’s picture did. Even if it’s the sort of idea of duck that you might get if you only ever got to touch the shape of a rubber one. The shell looks good, too. You can absolutely tell what it’s meant to be, even if the whole animal looks a little misshapen here and there, a little bit wobbly, a little bit… vague. 

The bottom line is, Sokka is really fucking impressed. And also a little heartbroken when she sits back and asks, “So, how does it look?”

“Fine,” he says earnestly. “Much better than my drawing, anyhow. You’re _good_.”

“Whatever, Bieber,” she retorts, but her smirk smoothens into a genuine smile for a flash of a moment that Sokka doesn’t miss. “We’re something, aren’t we? A guy who can’t draw for shit and a blind girl who has no idea what she’s doing.”

“Well, you seem to have a better idea what you’re doing than I do, anyway,” Sokka points out. 

Toph laughs. “Of course. Because I’m awesome.”

By now, Sokka is more than willing to admit that yes, she is. “So, see you around next week?” he asks, standing up. 

Toph shrugs. The nonchalance is laughably easy to see through, but Sokka doesn’t comment. “I guess, if you want. I’ll be here anyway so you could pester me again or whatever. But no singing.”

“No singing,” Sokka promises. “I might hum, though. It’s hard to control.”

“And I might accidentally punch you if you do,” Toph counters. “That’s hard to control, too.”

Sokka grins at her again. “Fair enough. See you later, then.”

“Later, Bieber.”

The grin stays on Sokka’s face all the way back to the car.


End file.
